Herpes (or any other STD) Exposure risk?

[Quoggsy]

Hi. After reading so many contradictory things on the internet and lots of messages on here I thought I would ask this specific question myself to try and get a clear answer.

Can someone please explain the herpes risk from this scenario please:

If a sex worker fingered and touched herself (for the sake of this, presuming she had open sores on her vagina area), and then used the same hand to masturbate a penis straight away, would transmission of herpes be possible?

If so, would you have to have that fluid enter the tip of penis and/or have visible cuts? Or can general soreness of previously masturbating be enough for tiny, tiny cuts for it to enter your body?

I’ve read on here that hand-genital transmission is impossible but even the NHS website lists this as a transmission route- “by transferring the infection on fingers from someone else to your genitals”.

Lastly, most sites say that the majority of herpes cases are asymptomatic, is this true or do you value being symptomless after two weeks as a sign of non-infection? Surely if so many people are asymptomatic nearly everyone would be infected by now?!

Thank you in advance and thank you for the work you do to help people on here.

[auntiejessi]

As someone who has hsv2, I can promise you that if she had open sores on or in her vagina, she isn't going to be fingering herself or touching herself. That hurts.

What you are suggesting isn't rational.

While in theory, it might be possible, no one ever touches themselves and then immediately touches someone else. Movement is involved, air is involved, touching other things is involved. Using your theory - if it were this easy to transmit, everyone would have it, right?

Also, herpes is spread by skin to skin contact - direct, unclothed skin to skin. When we say this, we mean oral to oral, oral to genital/anal, genital to genital, or genital to anal. It doesn't have to enter your urethra - the mucus membrane skin of your genitals and anus are thin enough for the virus to enter. Syphilis and HPV are also spread by this same skin to skin contact. You will not get it from hugging, casual contact, through clothing, toilet seats, etc.

Many people are asymptomatic. We don't know precisely how many - we used to think it was quite high, until we realized that we had false positives on the hsv2 IgG test.

Also, many people do get symptoms, but they are milder than what a lot of people might think are typical symptoms, so they get missed or are misdiagnosed as things like yeast infections, jock itch or other fungal infections, etc.

If your only risk was the woman fingering herself and then touching you, I wouldn't worry at all.

[Quoggsy]

Thanks for the reply. Can I just confirm, if the touching WAS immediate…? Surely having the virus on the hand and masturbating someone with wet bodily fluids straight away is similar to any of the other routes? Hence why it’s listed on most sites (eg NHS) etc? I’m not challenging you by the way, I’d just love to understand more clearly how to be so confident in not worrying about it. Thanks for your time.

[auntiejessi]

Here are some threads from experts when we had them about why this is not a risk:

https://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/Nervous-about-mutual-masturbation/show/2183476

https://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/Mutual-Masturbation-STD/show/1968429

https://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/mutual-masturbation-sti/show/1858544

https://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/Understanding-the-risks-of-mutual-fingering/show/1516796

https://www.medhelp.org/posts/HIV---Prevention/Vaginal-fluid-on-hand-touched-inside-of-condom-and-head-of-penis/show/1119533 - read this thread thoroughly. There is an excellent explanation about why certain activities are not risks, and why others are.